PFAS
Dupont, Chemours and Corteva agree on a deal and 3M is also reportedly considering a $10 billion settlement to avoid the trial beginning Monday
DuPont and two related companies announced Friday that they would pay nearly $1.2 billion to settle liability claims from public water systems that serve the vast majority of the U.S. population, just days before the start of one on Friday landmark lawsuit in South Carolina over PFAS contamination.
PFAS maker 3M is also reportedly considering a settlement to avoid facing accusations that the company was responsible for knowingly contaminating drinking water supplies in the United States.
The trial, which begins on Monday, is expected to shed light on long-kept documents about chemical giant 3M’s knowledge of the dangers of its per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). 3M has already announced that it will phase out PFAS production by 2025.
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DuPont and its affiliates were recently dropped from the case while negotiating a settlement in which DuPont will pay approximately $400 million; Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, will pay $592 million; and another DuPont-affiliated company, Corteva, will pay approximately $193 million.
The companies said the settlement excludes claims of personal injury from alleged PFAS exposure as well as claims from attorneys general for PFAS contamination of natural resources.
Bloomberg reported Friday that 3M is negotiating a $10 billion payout to settle the claims and avoid Monday’s trial.
When asked about a possible settlement, 3M said in a statement, “We do not comment on rumors and speculation.”
3M previously said in a court filing that it was not liable and that it “never owned, operated or otherwise controlled the facilities, disposal sites and other alleged sources of PFAS or related compounds.” The company lacked the “necessary post-sale controls of its products,” the filing says.
The company said in a statement that it is working to end the use of PFAS across its product portfolio by the end of 2025, despite “PFAS being manufactured safely and being used in many modern products.”
4,000 more plaintiffs
The plaintiff in the trial, scheduled to begin Monday, is the small town of Stuart, Florida, which is suing for contamination of its drinking water with two types of PFAS called PFOS and PFOA, which were used in foam by local firefighters.
More than 4,000 other plaintiffs are also part of the broader litigation overseen by the US District Court in Charleston, South Carolina. The objective of the multi-district lawsuit (MDL) is to recover the costs borne by public and private water utilities for testing, monitoring and replacing water supplies and installing equipment to remove chemicals from contaminated systems.
Stuart, a city of about 17,000 on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, found its drinking water wells were contaminated in 2016 when state regulators informed city officials that some of their well water levels contained higher levels of PFOA and PFOS than the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) stated ) deems it safe. Ultimately, it was determined that almost all of the city’s fountains contained some level of PFOA or PFOS.
The city traced the contamination to “aqueous film-forming foams” (AFFF) that the local fire department had used in practice drills for decades, unaware that the work protecting public safety potentially endangered them due to the hazardous chemicals contained in the foam.
The city has since installed an ion exchange filtration system designed to reduce PFOS and PFOA levels to undetectable levels, said Michael Mortell, Stuart City Attorney and interim city manager. The city wants 3M, not the taxpayer, to foot the bill. The city is also seeking punitive damages for 3M’s alleged “wrongful conduct.”
The Stuart case, like the thousands of other pending cases, alleges that 3M knew as early as the 1970s that PFOA and PFOS could pose a risk to human health and the environment, but chose to hide that knowledge from the public and the public to hide regulators, and continued to manufacture the chemicals for use in the extinguishing foam.
Stuart’s attorneys plan to base their case in part on 3M’s internal records, many of which were released after Minnesota officials negotiated an $850 million settlement with 3M over PFAS water pollution in 2018. which the state claimed caused cancer and other health problems in residents.
“They knew their chemical was … in the blood of the populace: every man, woman and child,” McWilliams, one of Stuart’s attorneys, summarized a position the city plans to defend in court. “They were debating whether or not to tell the EPA. Ultimately, they decided against it. And then they sat on it for 22 years.”
Even after the EPA urged 3M to stop manufacturing PFAS fire-fighting foam chemicals in 2002, the company allegedly failed to warn users and the public about harmful foam that was still on the market or to recall the harmful products.
Sometimes referred to as “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally degrade, PFAS are used in a wide variety of consumer and industrial applications due to their resistance to water, oil and heat, and are found in everything from pizza boxes and pesticides to to plastics and paints.
The EPA states that PFAS residues persist in water, soil, air, and food, as well as common materials in homes and workplaces. Scientists have also found that the toxins are now common in the bodies of humans and animals around the world. According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 97% of Americans have PFAS in their blood.
“Next to global warming, this is the biggest environmental disaster that has ever happened,” said Ned McWilliams, one of the attorneys representing the Florida city in the upcoming trial.
According to plaintiffs’ attorneys, a collection of some 3M and DuPont internal files dating back to the 1960s will be presented in evidence.
The testimony of retired 3M toxicologist John Butenhoff is also expected to be presented in the trial. In a video claim recorded before the trial, Butenhoff acknowledged that 3M was the most likely source of PFOS contamination around the globe, including in the air, water, soil, humans, fish, polar bears and “other arctic mammals.”
“The source is most likely 3M,” says Butenhoff in his statement.
This story is co-published with New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group
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